Book 56, 2020

[chez_jae]

If Angels Burn by Lynn Viehl

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Since I had so little left of my work book to read, I brought it home and finished it this evening. The book was If Angels Burn by Lynn Viehl. It's the first in the "Darkyn" series of paranormal romance. Main character was Dr Alexandra Keller, but the pov skipped around among several characters.

Alex is a brilliant reconstructive surgeon, living and working in Chicago. She keeps getting requests from a recluse in New Orleans, asking her to travel there to perform surgery on him. Alex is devoted to her local patients and provides the man with referrals, even as she refuses his ever more lucrative offers. Unfortunately for Alex, Michael Cyprien doesn't know how to take 'No' for an answer, which she learns when he has her abducted and brought to him. Infuriated, Alex wants nothing to do with her 'host'...until she sees his ruined face and discovers how quickly he heals. Intrigued, Alex performs the surgery to restore his face, after which Cyprien nearly kills her when he rips out her throat.

Alex is now thrust into the world of the Darkyn. She has increased strength and the ability to tune into the thoughts of others near her. All she wants is to return to her life in Chicago, but her life will never be the same.

So...this is what passes for romance?
The fact that Alex fell in love with this asshole by the end of the book just chaps my ass. He abducted her, smacked her around, nearly killed her, ruined her life, demands that she obey him, tries to force himself on her, later on ties her up so he can force himself on her, and finally forces her to drink his blood to complete her transformation. Be still my heart!

Initially, I was pleased to see how much Alex resisted him and told him to go to hell. It was disappointing to see her succumb to Stockholm Syndrome. I think the absolute worst was when, the first time he tried to force himself on her and she treated him to a "penguin", she later felt the need to apologize. She literally apologized for running away and leaving him with his pants down. WTF?!

I guess it was all okay, because he claimed to love her, too? Pardon me while I go vomit.

I didn't like this story. It was dark and gory and horrible. It was also confusing. I felt like I was reading the third or fourth book in a series, wherein the author assumed I'd read the earlier books and knew who the players were. There were no actual "good guys". The Darkyn are pretty much monsters, the Brethren, who hunt them, were worse monsters, and even Alex's brother, Father John, was horrible and flawed.

Favorite line: She could patch up her patients on the outside, but she could never erase or avenge what had been done to them. She couldn't heal what didn't show up on the CT scans or X-rays.

In spite of the fact that I did not like this book, I was utterly engrossed by it. It was compelling and gripping, and I just had to know what was going to happen. For that reason, I'm giving it a generous four stars.